29 Juni 2008

It's still all Shakespeare

I've always known that Shakespeare bequeathed us The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, Beware the Ides of March, To Be or Not to Be, and so forth, but there are countless others:


A dish fit for the gods
A fool's paradise
A foregone conclusion
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A sea change
A sorry sight
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
All that glitters is not gold
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
All's well that ends well
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As merry as the day is long
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Bag and baggage
Brevity is the soul of wit
But screw your courage to the sticking-place
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me
Come what come may
Discretion is the better part of valour
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Eaten out of house and home
Et tu, Brute
Even at the turning of the tide
Exceedingly well read
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog
Fair play
Fancy free
For ever and a day
Foul play
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
He will give the Devil his due
Heart's content
High time
Hoist by your own petard
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
I have not slept one wink
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
If music be the food of love, play on
In a pickle
In my mind's eye
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
It beggar'd all description
It is meat and drink to me
Lay it on with a trowel
Lie low
Like the Dickens
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Milk of human kindness
More honoured in the breach than in the observance
Much Ado about Nothing
Mum's the word
My salad days
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Off with his head
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Primrose path
Rhyme nor reason
Salad days
Send him packing
Set your teeth on edge
Shuffle off this mortal coil
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em
Such stuff as dreams are made on
The Devil incarnate
The game is afoot
The game is up
The quality of mercy is not strained
The Queen's English
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on
There's method in my madness
Thereby hangs a tale
This is the short and the long of it
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Vanish into thin air
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure
Wild goose chase
Woe is me